


Arms Outstretched

by fidelisinfinitum



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Angst, Autistic Jason, Canon Compliant, F/F, F/M, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Jason POV, Jason-Centric, M/M, Major Canon Character Death, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, The TKF, The Tight Knit Family - Freeform, for most of it but then, its implied but yeah, its more likely than you think, me posting self indulgent fic about a comfort character?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 08:35:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15770472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fidelisinfinitum/pseuds/fidelisinfinitum
Summary: Jason doesn't like hugs.Or, five times Jason was given a hug by a member of the Tight Knit Family, and one time he wanted one.





	Arms Outstretched

**Author's Note:**

> I have so many feelings about Jason 
> 
> Title from an amazing scene in taz

Jason's mother is fussing with his collar as his father checks his watch and sighs.

"We're both going to be late at this point," he says, and his mother glares at him for a second before beaming at Jason once again.

"Not every day is your first day of kindergarten, is it?"

Jason doesn't say anything. What are you even supposed to say to that anyway? His mother ushers him around the front yard, trying to find a perfect place to snap a picture as his father grumbles even more.

Finally, she positions him in front of the front stoop, and backs up with her camera. "Smile, honey," she says. His face stays set the way it was.

"I think I hear the bus a block away," his father says.

"Marvin," his mother hisses at him.

"What?"

Jason bares his teeth in a grimace, unwilling to miss even a second of his first day, and his mother quickly snaps a few pictures.

"Give me a hug, Jason," she says, kneeling down to his height. He can hear the bus pulling up, so he lets her hug him quickly, and runs out to the sidewalk to see the yellow bus pull around the corner. He misses completely the look of concern between his parents, usually so unconnected.

"Have a good day at school," his mother calls.

"Okay," he says, as the doors swish open.

"Bye, Jason," his father says.

He doesn't look back.

**

"You're what?" Jason asks, incredulous.

"We're getting a divorce," his mother repeats, although she still twists her wedding band around her finger.

Jason knew about the affair (about Whizzer, his mind fills in, although he wishes he didn't know his name), Jason knew about the fights, but Jason never imagined this.

"No," he said, putting his hands over his ears and turning away.

"Honey," he can hear his mother saying, muffled through his palms, before she puts her hand on his shoulder. He shrugs her off immediately, squeezing his eyes shut tightly. He stands there for a few minutes, his mind staticky with racing thoughts before he can feel two larger hands uncovering his from his ears.

His father kneels in front of him, the bags under his eyes more pronounced than ever.

"I'm sorry," he says, quietly, so quietly that Jason almost wonders if he's dreaming. Jason knows he's not because if this were a dream he could fly up and away from this house and this stupid family until he reached the moon and the stars and all the good things up there.

Jason doesn't say anything, because he knows you always reply to "I'm sorry" with "It's okay" and this is not okay. It's not okay that his father cheated on his mother. It's not okay that she had to find out by catching them having sex in the living room (Jason can hear all of their arguments, their house does not have very thin walls). It's not okay that his father doesn't love his mother the way he should (or maybe at all, Jason realizes). It's not okay that he's leaving Jason like this.

So Jason doesn't say anything, but his father pulls him into a hug anyway. Hugging isn't something Jason enjoys, much to the dismay of his mother and plenty of his relatives, but something compels him to hug his father back. He does, and it's like something breaks in him. He doesn't cry, because Jason doesn't cry. But he holds his father tighter than ever before, because no matter how world shaking this is, at least he's still here.

**

Jason is scared. He's never been scared of his father before, not like this. When he was younger he used to fear his father finding out about a B, or that he didn't eat all of his dinner, but this was different. The man in front of him had a glint in his eyes that Jason had never seen before. He paced like a caged animal, throwing his arms up in anger.

His mother got up to placate him, just as she always did, but Jason didn't leave or cover his ears this time. He watched, wide eyed beside Mendel as the argument escalated before his father seemed to stop, as if a final revelation had entered his head.

"I am so dumb," he muttered, hand over his face, and returned to his pacing, rounding the sofa. The room was deathly silent before he shouted towards his ex-wife "Why?"

She reached out, and it was as if time stopped when his hand flew out, striking her cheek.

Jason's mouth hung open as Mendel rushed to his mother, comforting her before she pushed him away, nodding towards Jason. For his part, Jason was fixated on his father's face, and the journey of anger, guilt, and self-hatred that crossed it. But he snapped out of it as soon as Mendel hugged him.

They hadn't done this before. They talked, they played chess, they did the sort of things that Jason imagined most fathers did with their sons, with the exception of this. They didn't hug because Jason didn't hug people.

He did now, he supposed, as he scrunched his fingers into the fabric of Mendel's shirt.

**

"What's wrong with Whizzer?" Jason asks his mother at breakfast. She avoids his gaze and continues pushing the eggs around the frying pan.

"What's wrong with Whizzer?" Jason asks Mendel on the way to school. His eyes go wide for just one second before he turns up the radio, asking Jason if he likes this song. He doesn't.

"What's wrong with Whizzer?" Jason asks his father outside of the hospital room. He doesn't say anything, but he doesn't exactly pretend like he doesn't hear him either. He just sits there, dull eyes boring into the white wall across from him before Cordelia ushers him in with a hand on his shoulder.

"What's wrong with Whizzer?" Jason asks Cordelia, his voice only a whisper. She frowns for a moment, but Jason sees it (he always does) and instead asks him if he wants any gefilte fish. She pronounces it wrong but he doesn't correct her.

"What's wrong with you?" Jason asks Whizzer, as the rest of the adults linger over Cordelia's food. Whizzer picks up a bishop and Jason frowns at him. "Nothing, kid," he says, and pauses to cough before putting the piece down.

"What's wrong with Whizzer?" Jason asks Charlotte, as she walks with him to the water fountain. He sees her bite her lip, he sees the indecision in her eyes, but she opens her mouth to answer anyway.

"He's sick, Jason," she says, "He's really sick."

"I know," he says, almost angrily. "I know he's sick but why is it such a big deal?"

"We don't know what's making him sick." Jason wants to protest, because Charlotte is the smartest person he knows. She's smarter than his dad, she's smarter than all his teachers, she's smarter than anyone he can think of. How can she not know?

He knits his eyebrows together, and decides that if this the one person who'll answer his questions, then he's gonna ask all of them.

"What's he sick with?"

"He has severe immune deficiency," she looks down at his face before continuing, "Which means that it makes it really easy for him to get sick, even to germs that you and me can fight off like that." She snaps her fingers, and Jason feels sick.

"Is he going to die, Charlotte?" Jason asks, and suddenly he's crying. He doesn't know why, because Jason doesn't cry. He can't cry. But he is now, and he hates it.

"Oh, honey," Charlotte says, and before he knows it, she's hugging him. He throws his arms around her, sobbing into her as she holds him, immune to the looks they get in the hallway.

"Is he?" It's muffled, and he's not sure she hears him until he hears her quiet reply.

"I don't know."

**

Jason can't breathe. His head is spinning. Charlotte is trying to comfort his father, who is sobbing over the bed. He's never seen his father cry before, but he can't find it in him to think about that. Mendel and his mother are just holding each other in the corner, like they don't belong. Cordelia has stilled her constant motion and stands next to him like a statue. Whizzer lies on the bed and doesn't breathe and doesn't joke and doesn't smile and Jason can't breathe.

His tie is too tight and the only sounds he can hear are his father's sobs and the flatline on the heart rate monitor. His hands shake as he tries to loosen the tie. Whizzer tied the tie for him. Whizzer tied the tie but he'll never do it again because Whizzer is dead and he's just going to lie on the bed forever. He feels hands on his shoulders and he's not sure who it is except that it's not his father because even though the sobbing has become louder, it's still just as far away.

He lets the hands lead him away from the room, lead him away from Whizzer and his father's cries and the smell of Cordelia's food. He lets the hands lead him into the hallway until they lift from his shoulders and he bolts. His mouth still tastes bitter from the champagne.

He doesn't know where he's going, but he runs to the elevator, knowing that it will take him away, and he wishes that it would take him up, out of the hospital and into the sky just like in Willy Wonka's factory.

He sees that the hands belonged to Cordelia as she rounds the corner while he rapidly jams the button that reads "1". She slips into the empty elevator (it's long past normal visiting hours) just before they slide shut.

"You can't just do that," she says, and wipes her eye with the heel of her palm. Jason distantly feels the need to say "I just did", but he doesn't. He just stands there, tears spilling out of his eyes, looking up at the blonde.

She hugs him, and Jason lets her, because she's sobbing into his shoulder because her friend is dead and there's enough floors left on the elevator and because he really can't move at all.

**

Jason wants a picture of Whizzer but he won't ask his father. He never sees his father anymore. One time, he told Jason that he was going out for milk for breakfast but he didn't come back until ten o'clock that night.

Not that Jason knew, he was asleep on Charlotte and Cordelia's couch. He only knows now because he heard Charlotte talking (yelling, more like) to him about it.

"You can't just leave a kid alone all day, Marvin!"

"I said I was sorry, Char! And he's not even a kid, he's thirteen!"

"That's close enough!"

"Who are you to tell me how to parent?!"

"Don't make me the bad guy here, Marvin."

Jason stares at the television, holding his Atari joystick in tight hands. Maybe if he can just focus on the game enough, he can drown out the sounds of them yelling in the kitchen.

When his parents would argue about the Bar Mitzvah, sometimes he would go to his room and try to stack pillows on his head until he couldn't hear it anymore (it never worked).

Sometimes he'd find Whizzer and they'd play chess, just long enough until the yelling stopped and it was time for Jason to go. Jason didn't play chess that much anymore. He was missing a piece.

"I know that Whizzer died, and I know that's hard-"

"That is hard. You have no idea."

"I know that's hard but you're a father. You can't just stop halfway through."

"Why not? He has Mendel, and Trina, he even has you and Cordelia. He's got it all, what does he need me for?"

"No he doesn't, he needs his father. Now, more than ever. Now, while you've still got time."

Jason wonders if his father would do anything differently if he knew that Whizzer would die. He wonders if he would do anything differently.

The sound of death rings on his screen as his character is blasted into a burst of pixels. The game over screen seems to glare at him. Jason wonders what happens when you die.

"He misses Whizzer too you know."

He tugs the controller suddenly, yanking it from the jack in the TV. It clatters on the floor, but not loud enough to drown out their voices.

"Look, Marvin, I'm sorry."

He wishes Whizzer was here.

"Just leave."

Whizzer would know what to say.

"I'll see you later, Marvin."

Whizzer would hug him and make it all feel better, and then he'd kiss Jason's father and it would all be okay.

"Yeah."

Jason hears the door shut, and the springs on the couch that means his father is back where he was before Charlotte came over.

Jason wants to put his head down and scream. Jason wants to run away and join the circus. Jason wants to be hitting a home run. Jason wants to be old enough that he can't remember anything anymore. Jason wants to be young enough that he doesn't have to. Jason wants to cry but the tears don't come.

Jason wants a hug but he won't get one.


End file.
